Tragically, the Apollo 1 crew was killed by a fire in the cockpit—during a ground test. Even though that incident didn’t take place in space, it highlighted the problems of fire in space travel.
Fire on Mir
NASA and others received another reminder during the joint American-Soviet missions to the Mir space station. During one mission, a [...]

We’ve seen space stations before. The old Soviet Union got the ball rolling in early 1970s with the first—the Salyut space stations. Next, America launched Skylab, which remains to this day the single largest “room” ever in space. (It was created from a hollowed-out stage of a Saturn rocket.)
The Soviets produced Mir, a multi-module space [...]

Even the casual space buff knows about the National Air & Space Museum. And, with some luck, you’ve probably been to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the Johnson Space Center in Houston—or both.
But America is filled with fine, and sometimes flukey, space places.
1. Tommy Bartlett’s Exploratory.

I don’t really know much about Tommy Bartlett, but [...]

For a short period of time, in 1986, the Soviet Union had two space stations. The older Salyut-7 station was nearing retirement, to be replaced by the new Mir station.
The Soviets were anxious to put a crew aboard Mir…but they weren’t yet done with Salyut-7. So mission planners came up with an ambitious idea.
The Mission
Cosmonauts [...]